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The 4 Types of Marketers You Need on an Inbound Marketing Team

You’ve been tasked with building a powerhouse inbound marketing team to attract traffic to your website and generate more sales leads. Where do you start? Which roles will produce the results that you’re looking for?

Those are the questions I asked when staffing our inbound marketing team two years ago.

1) The Writer

Without a good writer, your inbound marketing efforts will probably come up short. You’ll need to continually turn out thoughtful, well-written content to fuel your marketing.

Versatility is one trait that you’ll look for in a writer. They will need to write blog posts, social media posts, emails, and lengthier lead generation content pieces like e-books or guides. From 140-character tweets to 5,000 word documents, your writer(s) will need the versatility to write catchy promotional messages and in-depth, factual content alike that both attracts and converts.

Another trait to look for is curiosity. Journalists make great inbound marketing writers because they know how to write about topics they might not know much about. They research, study, and interview, then write in a way that tells a story in a straightforward, easy-to-understand way.

Alternatively, you could choose to outsource your writing. If this is a more economical choice for your company, you still may opt to have a writer in-house to act as an editor to put freelance writing in your brand voice and make sure every word rings true with your target audience.

2) The Designer/Developer

Because your website is the core of your inbound marketing, you’ll want to make sure it’s always running and performing at its best.

Your designer/developer needs to be adept in designing your website for better conversion. They will understand that a website isn’t an art project. They’ve probably watched people use websites they’ve created or used usability testing to resolve internal conflicts about web design rather than their own opinions. You’ll want your designer to understand how people use websites and have a constant desire to improve their work.

Your designer/developer will also understand the need to balance art and technology with good UX design (design for a better user experience). Because they are empathetic to the needs of your target audiences, they aren’t willing to say a landing page or call to action button is “finished,” because they have ideas to continually improve them.

While most of the designer/developer’s work will be web-based, they will need to have at least some experience with print design so they can lay out long form content like e-books or guides in PDF format.

3) The Analyst

Often overlooked is the marketing analyst. This guy or gal spends their days looking at your web and marketing analytics, drawing conclusions and forming hypotheses for your other team members to act on.

Your analyst is the one that would raise the red flag when a call to action or landing page isn’t performing, or when your homepage’s bounce rate is too high. They’ll follow an observation with, “what if we tried this…”

You should consider an analyst on your inbound marketing team because they are your record keepers, tracking all your results, successes and failures. They also give the numbers meaning, often translating the results to the rest of your team.

4) The Strategist/Team Leader

No inbound marketing team is complete without a fearless leader -- one who knows how to direct the day-to-day activities and make sure every member of the team marches to the same drum beat.

The strategist thinks with both the right and left brain. They connect the dots between the knowing the audience/their needs and your inbound marketing activities.

Think of this person as your team lead.

The strategist has the vision for how you’ll get more website traffic and convert more leads from your website. They also will work with your sales team to ensure there’s a smooth transition into the sales process.

Many companies make the mistake of thinking that one person can do it all. It’s not that a basic inbound marketing campaign takes more than 40 hours per week. Rather, it’s the diverse skillsets needed -- the creative, the analytical and the strategic -- that require multiple team members.

It’s your turn. What issues have you faced staffing your inbound marketing team? What roles do you find most critical to the success of your inbound marketing? Let us know in the comments below.